Years ago, teachers used to be focused on the product of a writing, giving little concern to the process of writing. As long as the grammar and organization was there, it was a success. However, now there is much more of a focus on the actual process of writing. Because of this, students need more time to revise and teacher feedback should be given during the drafting process (as opposed to being reserved for the final product, as traditionally done). One way that we can do this is to schedule individual conferences during the drafting/revision process. Due to time constraints that we often face in school (number of students vs one teacher), what are other ways that we can provide the much needed feedback during the writing process?

The best time to be involved is right at the beginning. That is when people's defenses are the the lowest because they don't know where they are going. Once they get started writing and then polish, they become attached to the writing and you are criticizing their "baby".

If you start with something different - say they have to make pictures of what they are going to write about, or a collage from magazines, or magnetic vocabulary, or making a telegram with the basic information, or just putting the pencil on the page and not taking it off for 15 mintues and writing something that whole time even it is, "I can't think of what to say" then people will have their defenses down. We often said to think of three topics, talk about those with a partner and pick one and then write on it for 15 minutes and then talk about the results with two people, get their input and questions, write again, look up vocabulary, look up facts and dates and so on, then write again. Then you give it to several people to read but you write it every other line so they can add things or question things.
Then the teacher can edit. Then you write the final product and have some goal for that final product so it is important - publishing a newsletter, making a poster, making a small book with illustrations, making a plot for a movie they will do later, adding pictures, or turning it into a letter to the editor. This is closer to real life and gives people a product they are proud of. Then you can go back with them and ask them about the process and what they learned along the way that they didn't know before. Make a recording of writing tips from this and give everyone a copy.